


By TV light

by eretria



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, M/M, Wings, episode 8.07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-17
Updated: 2012-11-17
Packaged: 2017-11-18 20:54:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/565192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eretria/pseuds/eretria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"<i>Dean's heard the portal's roar in every strong wind since he came back, a constant reminder of how he failed. Now he knows that he hasn't failed.</i><br/>Now he knows he was rejected."  </p><p>Set after 8.07.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By TV light

**Author's Note:**

> Beta-read by murron and Auburn.

By TV Light

 

The hotel room is dark and quiet. The ancient air conditioning rattles and sighs and only produces dusty air that scratches Dean's throat.

He lies on the cover of his bed, fully clothed but curled on his side. Sam is handing the Trans over to Garth and Dean is left with his own thoughts - and Cas.

He's chosen to ignore Cas' presence for the time being and Cas does nothing to disturb him. There's no sound of breathing, no rustle of restless shifting, only the flickering blue light from the TV and the rattling shush of the air conditioning. Strangely enough, though, knowing Cas is there makes Dean's heartbeat slow down to a regular pace.

Dean remembers Purgatory. How clear everything had been and how simple. Run, fight, kill. Don't sleep.

He'd never managed to get a moment’s rest even with Benny keeping watch.

After they'd found Cas, however, he remembers falling asleep on his side with Cas sitting next to him. The warmth from Cas' knee where it touched him was a steady presence that made something heavy and dark glide over his thoughts and soothed his frayed nerves and his fighter's instinct. Later, in the murky twilight that passed for morning in Purgatory, Benny commented on Dean's rested state in amused confusion, "He calms you down."

Cas had, hadn't he? Finding him in Purgatory, having him close, felt like having a wound scab over that had been kept open for too long. It hadn't made sense then and it didn't make sense now, because with everything Cas had done, all the death and destruction he'd caused, Dean should hate him, hunt him like the things he'd hunted all his life.

But Dean remembers. He remembers never being able to fall asleep in Purgatory before they found Cas. He'd been so tired, so very tired of running and fighting, but he knew that if he shut his eyes and just one of the monsters got past Benny, that was it. That was their chance to get out of Purgatory gone.

If Dean is honest with himself, getting out of there had never just been for him. The whole drive hadn't just been to survive and get out. He's never been all that good at looking out for himself. But he's damn well always been good at looking out for others. So of course, finding Cas, finding the missing part of his family had been his driving force.

It's hard to stomach that Cas had let go. Willingly let go after Dean spent so much time looking for him. Dean still hears the sound of the portal when he doesn't make an effort to shut the memory down. The hissing, roaring noise of a storm rushing in. It had pulled him in and thrown him, and only him, out of Purgatory. It should’ve sucked in the two of them. But despite the portal’s strength, the vortex that tore at Dean and made it so damn hard to reach out for Cas, hadn't seized on Cas, hadn't pulled him any closer to Dean.

Dean's heard the portal's roar in every strong wind since he came back, a constant reminder of how he failed. Now he knows that he didn't fail.

Now he knows he was rejected.

But that's how it always goes, isn't it? No matter how hard Dean fights, no matter what he does and which sacrifices he makes, in the end, everyone he loves gives up. Gives up fighting. Ostensibly to save Dean from pain, to protect him. Not one of them has kept fighting to stay with him.

In the end, he always ends up alone. No matter what he does.

Dean flops to his back and throws his right arm over his stinging eyes. _Pull yourself together, man, you're whining. He's back, isn't he? Jut take it and bury the rest like you buried everything else._

Dean turns to his other side and watches Cas haloed by the TV light. Perfect. Ethereal. Alien. 

Familiar. 

Dean's heart beats faster in his chest and it feels strange, like his skin is too small for him. No, he's not over Cas' revelation that he didn't want to be saved. He could have damn well told Dean, couldn't he? Would have saved him a lot of pain. He could have hauled his ass out of Purgatory a lot earlier if he hadn't been looking for Cas.

But why is he even kidding himself? Dean knows that he never would have accepted Cas' wish. He's man enough to admit now that, selfishly, he wanted Cas out and with him.

And Cas just let go. He fucking let go.

Dean wants to shout and rage and smash things but does neither because how can he blame Cas for not giving him what he wants? Why the hell should Cas do anything just to make Dean feel better? He's an angel and he's neither Dean's property nor is he truly his family, so Dean cannot expect anything from him. Their friendship, whatever it means to Cas, doesn't include this. The knowledge doesn't stop the feeling of abandonment, though, nor the rage. 

For the first time Dean doesn't know how to give his anger an outlet because he knows his feelings are childish. 

He closes his eyes and heaves an explosive sigh. The TV light flickers, visible even through his closed eyelids.

He should get up. He should move, get the adrenaline out of his body. He should get away from Cas. Away from the shush-shuff-hiss of the damn air conditioning that sounds like the portal opening all over again.

Easier to run from his problems than to face them when he doesn't even know precisely what his problems are. Instinctively, he pulls his hands under his armpits and curls in on himself a little more. The air conditioning, turned up all the way, chills the room and him. He's overcompensating to make himself forget the humid heat of Purgatory. No wonder he's shivering now. That's all there is. No other reason.

He's still contemplating running when the flickering of the TV stops and the bed dips, gently. 

The air conditioning begins to make a steady whirring noise that grows louder by the second and panic claws its way into Dean's body. His flight instinct goes into overdrive, he can't be here and doesn't want to be here, where everything sounds like doors ripping through space, where he can even feel Cas the way he did then and smell the dirt on both of them. The dirt that’s ingrained into his skin, the blood that’s under his fingernails even when he can’t see it. He's sure Cas hasn't been able to wash off or magic away Purgatory any more than he did. Instead of giving into his instincts, though, Dean freezes, clenches his hands into his shirt and keeps his eyes tightly shut, his face pressed into the sleek, cheap polyester of the bedspread.

The effect of Cas' presence hasn't changed. It ebbs and flows, night-dark and sky-bright, a cool hand on a feverish brow.

It sears a path of calm into Dean's body and mind that Dean wants to hold onto it, to remember, to lock it away inside of him for the time when he's going to be alone again.

"Never." The word, intense though it is uttered, is a mere whisper carried on the cold breeze from the air conditioning vent. It's quiet enough that Dean is left wondering if he ever heard Cas say it in the first place. He's glad, though, because that way, he can hope that it was a reply to his thoughts.

Is it so unlikely, though? Cas has always come back to him, one way or another. After he died the first time, after the second, now, even after Purgatory, Cas didn't just disappear and never show up again, he came back to Dean.

So what if Cas is right? What if it really isn't up to Dean to save Cas and keep him with Dean, but what if Cas comes back no matter what Dean does or doesn't do?

He tries to move, to sit up, to look at Cas eye-to-eye, but fatigue sweeps over him and presses his body into the mattress, boneless and relaxed. He's not sure if that's his body's own doing or if it's something that Cas is doing. The whirring and shush sounds still creeps him the hell out. He shouldn't be able to relax.

But Cas is here.

He's back.

_"Did you see them?" Kevin had asked after Crowley had disappeared. His eyes had been large with awe and a healthy dose of fearful respect. "Did you see his wings? I thought that was a myth."_

Dean hadn't answered back then, had just looked at Cas' crumpled form on the ground. He had seen them, years ago. Just the once, but the memory is etched into his brain. If he’s honest with himself, he’d thought that Cas had lost them.

Hearing they were still there, even if he hadn't seen them, made something slot into place in Dean's heart. Something that had felt out of place, that jarred every time he touched it for far too long. He only realises when the AC shuts off without Cas moving from the bed what it is: He's ready to believe again. 

Against better knowledge, against all the evidence trying to prove him wrong. Against every survivor's instinct he wants to believe in Cas.

There is a soft, rustling sound and something like a sigh.

Dean smiles into the bedspread and feels his body relax completely. His heartbeat slows. No more need for his fighter's instinct. 

Cas' wings fold around him, night-cool and feather-warm, and Dean slips into a deep, dreamless sleep.

fin


End file.
